Okay, impatient Internets, here, at long last, is a sneak peek of our apartment:
Just kidding! This is the Jelly Belly bull on the ground floor of Selfridge’s at the Bullring shopping center. You can buy one just like him for £20,000. He lives next to the Krispy Kreme and the Lucky Charms you can buy [...]
I’ve really been missing my beloved New Seasons. Ginger candy and chocolate soy milk and Bragg’s liquid aminos…mmm. I do hear that there is a Whole Foods or two in London, but that’s a little impractical. Instead we get to do our grocery shopping at places called Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s, and, oh yes, ASDA, but [...]
People are generally very good at picking up that we are not from Around Here. They start by asking what we’re doing here (husband’s job) and where we’re from (Oregon, just north of California).
The next question, invariably, is why would you want to live here?
At first we didn’t really understand this: to us it’s [...]
Several years ago, I learned to read. I was 4 at the time, so when I was 5 and it was time to start kindergarten, my reading skillz propelled me straight into first grade.
In second grade, I finished my math workbook a few weeks before the end of the school year, so they gave me [...]
One of the nice things about our ridiculously inefficient washing machine is that if you’re washing overnight, you can delay the cycle so it’s done at approximately the time you wake up so that you can pull the clothes out whilst they’re still hot and thus reduce your ironing time. Of course, it never actually [...]
So I have this husband who moved me halfway around the world and then left me here whilst he went home for 3 weeks for an MBA class. (I know, right?) While he was gone, I attempted to pass the time by purchasing a jigsaw puzzle. I did not know at the time of purchase [...]
So we had our first very welcome visitors last weekend. Not only do we get to see and/or meet Stephan’s cousin Alison and her friend Melissa, but we actually went out and did stuff. Like this:
Went to Warwick Castle, where there were peacocks and a birds of prey show and a wax figure of Queen [...]
So we live in a brand new building on a complex that so far includes one giant square courtyard along the length of our building and a renovated girls school down another side (photos when Stephan gives my camera back). We think that another building similar to ours will be going in across the courtyard [...]
You know how when you’re reading one of those books intent on preserving dialect and people say things like “git” and “sez”? Exactly how I’ve been pronouncing those words my entire life?
Turns out that people here actually pronounce “says” the way it looks like it should be pronounced (”say” with an “s” on the end), [...]
1. Lemonade. First, there is “traditional lemonade,” like regular-type US lemonade. Then there is “lemonade,” the generic term for lemon-lime soda, which is what one typically requests if one wants Sprite or 7-Up. Then there is the “lemonade” made by Schweppes, which actually says “lemonade” on the label, but is sparkling and lemon flavored and [...]
